Sunday, March 10, 2013

Misconceptions: Doublehead, Priber, and Yahoo Falls

Now I don't like eating too much fat. So in order to get mostly meat I usually cut off most of the fat. Likewise, to get at the truth, which is the meat, first you have to cut off the fat, which are the lies.

Did
Doublehead die in Kentucky or the Cherokee Nation? Was Priber important to the
Cherokee or was he just hated by the English, so they invented tales about him?
And was there a yahoo Falls massacre, mentioned by Collins but not Troxell?
Just do an internet search and you’ll see true believers all over the internet.
This paper covers all three topics.

The following is part of a conversation I once had online
with Jerri Chastain, former registrar of the Cherokee Elder Society, now deceased,
and deeply missed by all who cherish rational genealogical research. Now that
her voice is stilled, more and more nonsensical genealogical comments go
unchallenged.

I
have a couple of questions about this account (below) that I'll ask in the next
post, as this one is long enough as is for now.

------------------------

In
1796, Chief Doublehead had become the Speaker for the Cherokee Nation and
became the chief spokesman for all negotiations with the Federal government.
There were 3 cessions made of Cherokee lands in 1798 and it was common
knowledge that Doublehead had prospered as a result. By 1804, he had become a
prosperous land owner with about two dozen slaves. The Secretary of War, Dearborn,
in fact, had given instructions that all agents were to deal specifically with
Doublehead on the assumption he could be bribed. In 1805, Dearborn had Col.
Return Jonathan Meigs acquire several valuable tracts of land with the promise
that two tracts at the mouth of the Clinch and Hiwasee Rivers be exclusively
for Doublehead's use. To add fuel to the fire, Doublehead had also leased
several tracts at Muscle Choals to white farmers from a treaty he signed in
Dec. 1806.

By
this time, a Cherokee faction led by James Vann, Major Ridge, and Alexander
Saunders decided Doublehead should die for his crimes. Vann had a family score
to settle. Doublehead had married a sister to Vann's wife and had treated her
brutally, beating her to death while she was pregnant.

Therefore,
the three men decided to execute the traitor in Aug. 1807, when the Cherokees
collected the annual annuity from the Federal agent. However, on the way, Vann
fell ill and could not continue. On Aug. 9, 1807, Ridge and Saunders arrived at
McIntosh's Tavern on the Hiwassee and waited for an opportunity. Doublehead had
been playing ball 3 miles away where he had killed a man called Bone-Polisher
who had become abusive. Therefore, he didn't arrive until after dark, half
drunk. Suddenly, Ridge blew out the candle in the Tavern and fired a shot at
Doublehead which shattered his jaw.

Having
thought they killed him, they slipped out into the dark. However, they soon learned the tavern keeper
had moved the wounded Chief to his house and then again to the loft of a Mr.
Black, who taught in Gideon Blackburn's school.

[Vance’s
note: Jonathan Black DID teach there. In COLONEL RETURN JONATHAN MEIGS; Day Book Number 2; By James L. Douthat; we
have the following -- To
cash d'd [delivered] to Jonathan Black, the School Master by request of Mr.
Gideon Blackburn 100 dollars. Now back to Jerri’s
reply to my querry].

By then, two men from
Bone Polisher's clan had joined them and together they rushed the room where
Doublehead lay. As they approached, the wounded chief sprang up, drew a dirk,
and tried to draw a pistol but was caught up in the sheet around him. Both
Ridge and Saunders leveled their guns at him but misfired. Doublehead then
grappled with Ridge but Saunders drove his tomahawk into Doublehead's skull so
hard that it took two hands and a foot to pry it loose.

After
the killing, most of the Cherokees felt it was justified and his relatives were
not forced by clan responsibility to exact revenge. This led to the abolition
of clan revenge at the Council of Broomstown on Sept. 11, 1808. However, James
Vann was killed in 1809 possibly for his part in the execution."

have
these questions --

i.]
Is the previous account true?

ii.]
What is the source of it? It wasn't given.

iii.]
I have an ancestor John Brown who married Polly Black, 1820, Lawrence County,
Alabama. Their son David B Brown married Harriet Guess and they moved to
Arkansas David and Hariet had a daughter Josephine Brown, who married my great
grandpa and they moved into IT in 1872.

I
was wonderin' if anyone knew anything more about Jonathan Black, I believe he
was a White school teacher at Hiwassee School. I read that school existed from
@ 1804-1814. It was to Jonathan Black's house (according to the previous
account) that Doublehead fled after being wounded. He was killed apparently at
the Black's home.

Question
-- I can't find where Jonathan Black lived before he became a teacher or where
he went after the school closed down -- nothing at all. It was a Presbytarian
School and there are many Cherokee Brown's associated with the Presbytarian
Brainard Mission of that same time frame. So I was wonderin' about it. Jonathan
Black may or may not have been Polly's dad -- but I'd like to find out if he
was, and if he was Polly's dad, who was her mother?

Thanks.
This might just be another wild goose chase, but I don't know any other way to
find out.

all
help appreciated

Vance
Hawkins

Now I
ramble and ramble, often rattling on long after I should shut up. I know this.
Jerri was more to the point.

Jerri Chastain:

Vance-

The
account- with a few deviations- corresponds with the account told to the
missionaries and recorded in the Spring Place Moravian Diary. However, in that
account Doublehead was accosted in the home of Mr. Black (NO first name!). A
couple of shots missed, then the lights went out. When the light was restored,
Doublehead lay dead from the blow with the hatchet. Only three people was
present, and all three denied striking the fatal blow.

I
have no further information on your Jonathan Black- but as I said above- there
was no first name listed for this "Mr. Black".

P.S.--
Those people who are trying to claim descent from someone called "Princess
Cornblossom- the daughter of Doublehead" and have visited
"Doublehead's grave" IN KY, should note that the place of his death
-- and burial was NOT in KY, it was in the part of the Cherokee Nation that
became GA and there is no evidence that he had a daughter named
"Cornblossom".

Graveside
funeral services for Jerri Gearldine (Rogers) Chasteen, 81, Claremore, are
Friday, July 24, 10 a.m., at Fairview Cemetery in Pryor. Services are under the
direction of Key Funeral Home of Pryor.

She
was born May 28, 1928 in Pryor, to Earl Jessie Rogers and Olga Nancy Williams.
She died July 21, in Claremore. She attended the first eight years of school in
Pryor and completed her education in California, where she achieved an
associates degree in Business Administration and Accounting. She enjoyed
several occupations in her professional life. She worked for American Airlines
and Douglas Aircraft. She became a licensed private investigator and worked for
the Fletcher detective agency in Tulsa. She and her husband later ran the CB
shop and Truckers store in the Cherokee Truck Stop at Big Cabin. They became
known from coast to coast by the truckers as “Copperhead and Deacon.” “Deacon,”
Cloys Dwight Chasteen preceded her in death in 1984. She retired from the truck
stop after Dwight died and decided to focus her passion on Cherokee Tribal
history and became a certified professional genealogist. She worked closely
with Lee Fleming HR, and the Cherokee Nation to promote accurate research
practices. She also worked with the National Archives and the Mormons library
in Salt Lake as she established the Cherokee Archival Project, collecting and
translation of historical records relating to all of the 5 civilized tribes.
She became the first Head Registrar for the Cherokee Elders Society, and worked
as Vice President of the Twin Territory Historical Society for several terms.
She was a board member of the Native American Arts Council. During the 80s
and 90s, the Oklahoma Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court considered
her qualified to give “expert testimony” on Cherokee History and Cherokee
Citizenship Rights.

Her
dedication to the creation of accurate records for valid tribal citizenship was
her passion. Until her death, she maintained the leadership of several online
group sites such as on ancestry.com and Cherokee.net.

Much
of her considerable research archives will be donated to the Pryor Library in
hopes that everyone will be able to research their ancestors locally.

Family
will greet friends Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m., at Key Funeral Home in Pryor.

If she was
qualified to give “expert testimony” on Cherokee History before the United
States Supreme Court, then don’t you think she probably knew where and when
Doublehead was killed? Don’t you think her statement that “there is no evidence that he [meaning Doublehead] had a daughter named Cornblossom” bears
more strength than Dr Tankersley, whom I suspect doesn’t carry the same
credentials, with respect to being considered as an “expert witness” before the
United States Supreme Court, on the topic of “Cherokee History”? So I guess it
boils down to who do you believe, Jerri or him? Although I didn’t know her, we
did correspond a few times via email. My money goes on her.

Again she
is sorely missed, and I don’t see anyone coming along who can replace her.

Christian Priber

In both
Troxell’s account, Christian Priber is mentioned as a man of some importance.
Indeed, he has Doublehead marrying Priber’s daughter. Other historians and
researchers, usually amateur researchers, say the same, he influenced Cherokee
culture. Do you want to know what the Cherokee say about him? Robert Conley,
Cherokee author of many, many books, both historical fact and historical
fiction, was commissioned to write a history of the Cherokee Nation by the
Cherokee Nation. The result was The Cherokee Nation, A History” published in
2005. Here is what he said about Priber, page 37:

Once again, the English chroniclers and
their followers who have blindly followed them have given us a tale full of
contradictions. Priber was German, but was a French agent. He was a Jesuit
priest, but railed against religion. He was a dangerous French agent who urged
the Cherokee to trade with both the French and English . . . Among a
matrilineal society, he spoke of wives as property without being killed, thrown
out of town, or even laughed at. Among a people with a strong clan system, he
advocated that children be raised as ‘public property’ . . . The man himself
has been painted as a bundle of contradictions, and the idea he is supposed to
have proposed to the Cherokees and supposed to have influenced them would never
have been listened to by Cherokees. The entire tale is ludicrous.

Conley goes on to say the Chiefs DID LIKE Priber, there is NO WAY he could have influenced the Cherokee in the manner usually inscribed to him. He states the English hated him, suspected him of being a French agent, and the charges against him might just have fabricated by the English as a means of silencing him. He died in prison, which was very convenient for the English. But he concluded the idea he is supposed to have proposed to the Cherokees and supposed to have influenced them would never have been listened to by Cherokees. The entire tale is ludicrous.

Unfortunately
Conley doesn’t answer the question of just who Doublehead’s earliest wife was. We
know he married in the Vanns and also the Chickasaw Colbert’s. Did he have
other wives? There is no documented evidence he married a daughter of Priber named Creat, or that such a daughter even existed
– that is just a story. Since Jerri Chasteen says there is no evidence Cornblossom ever existed, I think it is safe to say that there is no evidence that her mother, Creat Priber, ever existed, either. Troxell, the inventor of this story, gives no proofs or
explanation for it. Troxell did say some of the characters were fictitious. Maybe Cornblossom was one of them.More About Robert Conleyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._Conley

Samuel D. Perry and I emailed back and
forth several years back. He wrote an excellent book, “South Fort Country”. He
freely talks about mixed-blood families moving into the area and says (page
106);After 1805, no
Cherokee had any legal claim to South Fork Country [Vance’s note: meaning
Wayne, McCleary, and neighboring counties in Southern Kentucky] . . . though
they did not own the land, Cherokees continued to be a visible part of the
regional scene. Many individual Cherokees had allied themselves with White
families through marriage . . . The mixed blood offspring of these marriages
blended easily into the frontier scene and experienced few difficulties as a
result of their racial heritage.

He talks of his own family as well,
living in the ara and hearing those stories about Doublehead, and says as a
child he believed them. He came to a point where he changed his mind about
those stories. He forwarded me a couple of his writings. One he said was the
property of of a news outlet and I didn’t have permission to share it with
others. But he said the of the other, that I could share it however I saw fit.
The writing that he graciously allowed meto share is below --;

YAHOO
FALLS AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

Located
in McCreary County, Kentucky, Yahoo Falls is considered to be Kentucky's
highest waterfall, although it is believed that a similar waterfall in the Red
River Gorge exceeds Yahoo Falls in height by a few inches. It is a very scenic
waterfall and is surrounded by magnificent vistas and natural arches. In the
gorge into which Yahoo Falls plunges there exists a rarity in Kentucky, a
sizeable tract of virgin timber, protected from harvest over the years by the
inaccessibility of the gorge.

When
the Cumberland National Forest was created in 1937, ownership of the Falls and
surrounding second-growth timberland passed to the Federal government and
management of it was entrusted to the U.S. Forest Service, an agency of the
Department of Agriculture. Always off the beaten track, so to speak, the Yahoo
Falls area languished for more than twenty years as the Forest Service gave the
land an opportunity to heal itself after decades of high-grade logging abuse,
uncontrolled burning, and erosion.

In
1953, supervision of the Cumberland National Forest was assigned to Robert F.
Collins, a professional forester, sportsman, and far-sighted manager of natural
resources. Collins was also a history buff and admirer of the Kentucky explorer
and pioneer, Daniel Boone. So much so, that in 1966, he was almost solely
responsible for having the name of the Cumberland National Forest changed to
that of Daniel Boone National Forest. In his seventeen-year tenure as Forest
Supervisor, Collins made a name for himself as a progressive land manger and
undertook many innovative projects that transformed the Forest from a virtual
wasteland into a haven for lovers of outdoor recreation and a sustainable
source of wood products.

Collins
had a sincere interest in the history of the region that became the Daniel
Boone National Forest and sought to establish sites on the Forest where that
history could be used to attract visitors and educate the general public. As a
Boone enthusiast, he was, naturally, attracted to the northern reaches of the
Forest where Boone had spent most of his time while in Kentucky. However, the
southern districts could not be ignored and Collins began to look around for
something he could use as a basis for interpreting the history of that region.
He found it in an obscure booklet entitled LEGION OF THE LOST MINE, published
in 1958 by a Scott County, Tennessee resident, Thomas Harlan Troxel.

LEGION
OF THE LOST MINE is a short collection of stories based upon the traditions of
the Troxel family and centers around an intriguing person in the history of the
Cherokee, Chief Doublehead. In the book, Troxel creates additional characters
to supplement the Doublehead story. Big Jake, Princess Cornblossom, Hans
Blackberne, and the romantic Brave Tuckahoe all romp through the pages of
LEGION OF THE LOST MINE like characters in a Walt Disney drama. Although Thomas
H. Troxel was careful to note in the foreword to his book that the names of
some of the characters are fictitious, many well-meaning persons have used his
work as a framework upon which to build a fraudulent history of the region
drained by the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. Robert Collins used it
to create the Yahoo Falls Recreation Area on the Stearns Ranger District.

Knowing
that it would be cost-prohibitive to attempt to extract the mature timber from
within the Yahoo Creek gorge, the decision was made to turn Yahoo Falls into a
scenic attraction and lure visitors to the Stearns Ranger District. An
all-weather road was built from the Alum Ford road to the top of the gorge and
a picnic area was established with sources of potable water, fire pits, and
toilets. Trails were constructed and a long flight of steel stairs led visitors
down into the gorge past towering cliffs and nearly vertical slopes lush with
mountain laurel, rhododendron, and not a few threatened and endangered species
of plants.

For
the history buffs, Collins ordered the construction of a cemetery at the
entrance to the Yahoo Falls Recreation Area. This cemetery would contain only one
grave, that of a Jacob Troxel, one of the major players in LEGION OF THE LOST
MINE. With the help of a local congressman, a government-issued marker was
acquired and installed at the head of the "grave". The marker would
identify Jacob Troxel as a veteran of the Philadelphia County Militia in the
Revolutionary War.

Today,
management of the Yahoo Falls area is the responsibility of the National Park
Service and hundreds of visitors come to stand under the immense overhang
beneath the Falls and to navigate the trails that penetrate the pristine creek
gorge. Presumably, some of these visitors also pause at the entrance and look
at the lone gravestone enclosed by a rustic fence, not knowing that the stone
stands over an empty grave, and that it honors a man who, in all probability,
never existed. To his credit, in LEGION OF THE LOST MINE, Thomas H. Troxel
never mentions Jacob Troxel, referring, instead, only

to
a Big Jake, going so far, even, as to suggest that he might be "Jacob the
conjuror, as spoken of in connection with Indians in Virginia colonial
history." However, because of the intercession of Robert Collins and
others, it has been assumed that Big Jake was, indeed, Jacob Troxel.

Shortly
after his retirement, in 1970, Robert Collins was commissioned by the Forest
Service to write a history of the Daniel Boone National Forest. Since its
publication in 1975, A HISTORY OF THE DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST has become
the definitive work (and the only work) on the subject, even though it has been
the object of negative criticism within the agency, itself. In his book,
Collins perpetuates the Big Jake-Princess Cornblossom-Chief Doublehead legend
and enhances it, going so far as to lend credence to what is, perhaps, the most
notorious of the myths, the alleged massacre of innocent Cherokee at Yahoo
Falls by Indian-hating whites. This grievous indictment of the non-Indian
citizens of Wayne County, Kentucky, particularly the Gregory family, is an
unforgivable breach of professional ethics by Collins or any reputable
historian. By making such charges without proof, Collins ensures that he can
never be taken seriously as a historian and leaves all of his work open to
question and debate. In his wisdom, even Thomas H. Troxel makes no mention of a
massacre at Yahoo Falls in his published writings.

For
many years, I was a believer in the Big Jake-Princess Cornblossom-Yahoo Falls
Massacre legend. When I undertook the research which culminated in the
publication of my own book, SOUTH FORK COUNTRY, I quickly learned that much of
what I had believed in my younger days about the legend was based upon pure
speculation, wishful thinking, and, as time went on, deliberate attempts to
deceive. After much study, I concluded that, although there was, indeed, a
Chief Doublehead (though bearing no resemblance to the Doublehead of the
legend), both Big Jake (Troxel) and Princess Cornblossom were, both, simply,
figments of Thomas H. Troxel's imagination and that the Yahoo Falls Massacre
was simply an add-on to the legend designed to serve personal agendas.

The
oft-repeated (even on the Internet) story of a mass murder at Yahoo Falls is
based, not upon empirical data, but upon hearsay and revisionist history. It is
an unconscionable smear of the descendants of Hiram Gregory, who is charged
with leading the assault upon the Cherokees, and serves, not to unite the
people of the Big South Fork region, but to divide them.

In
the past, good, but misinformed persons have sought to create a heritage for
the people living within the drainage basin of the Big South Fork whom they
regarded as having none. They used their influence to put up historical markers
and headstones, wrote about the region in national forest histories, and,
patronizingly, tried to give what they thought was the region's due. They
cannot be faulted for this because they did what they believed was right. But,
we are at the dawn of a new era in historical research and the citizens of
Wayne, Pulaski, and McCreary counties now know that their true heritage can be
based upon real people and real events. We must not be afraid to subject our
sacred cows of tradition to the historical method and evaluate the data
objectively and responsibly. I have done that to the Chief Doublehead-Big
Jake-Cornblossom-Yahoo Falls Massacre, and have found it to be what it always
will be-a series of fanciful stories not based upon factual evidence.

Samuel
D. Perry, Copyright: 2002

So
although there were admittedly many mixed race families living in the area
where some of our Gist’s lived, the stories you see online mentioning
Cornblossom, Tuckahoe, and the Yahoo Falls Massacre – these people and events
are fictitious.

3 comments:

NO! I didn't mean to "delete it!" Wish I knew how to undelete your message. Yes I have been reconsidering all of this. There was that "Blevins" surname! "Blevins" is also associated with the "Sizemore" surname. There was a Blevins/Sizemore are recording who spoke of living "on the Catawba Reservation" even though he was asking for sattus as Indian as Cherokee. If your Blevins can trace themselves back to the Sizemore Blevins families -- that might account for these Indian families in Southern Kentucky. Good luck. :)

About Me

Howdy. I am a 60 year old male (as of late December, 2012). I am using this particular photo for two reasons. i.] I am wearing my t-shirt that I bought at Oklahoma Historical Society in Oklahoma City -- I am vrey proud to be an Oklahoman. And ii.] I had just run 2 miles at the gym on a treadmill when that photo was taken. I am also proud to still be able to run a little at 60 years of age. My body is changing though, and I don't know if I'll still be able to run at 61. If it is possible, I will do it. Wish me luck.

I am mostly Caucasian, with a little American Indian and sub-Sahara African DNA mixed in (per DNA testing), Caucasian blood is English, German, and Scots-Irish, probably in equal amounts. American Indian blood seems to be Cherokee and/or Catawba. So many people claim some Cherokee heritage that I hesitate to mention it. Before going further I need to say we are NOT federally enrolled and we don't belong to any of the state recognized groups either. African blood will be researched later. I fear it will be nearly impossible to learn much about, but one day, I'll try. Finding African blood was an unexpected result of searching my Indian blood. Genealogy research is my passion.

My passion has also always been research of any kind, Noone ever hired me to do any, so I made my own research projects,with my genealogy project a prime example. I am proud of our research and have written a book "Finding Our Indian Blood" which will be published shortly by Bluewater Publishing.

I have a Bachelors degree in Mathematics (57 hours) with a Physics Minor (31 hours). I used to search for days on end to be hired to use that degree, but noone cared about it. I was overqualified or underqualified for every job there was. Eventually I gave up and quit telling people about it so I could get hired to do anything.

The bulk of my blogging will be about i.] genalogy research methods; ii.] my family genealogy; iii.] little known Cherokee communities and research; iv.] little known Catawba communities and research; v.] Eventually I will go into African-American genealogy research, especially as it pertains to the mixed race Indian peoples known as "Melungeon". I will fight with my last breath those idiotic notions that the Melungeons are Gypsies or Portuguese. vi.] I love Oklahoma to death. I will write about Oklahoma history as well.

vii.] Years back I had an interest in Bible prophecy. I have always thought you had to be humble to understand it. Thus those who said "God told them" how to interpret things were boasting, therefore they were not humble, therefore you couldn't believe they had any connection at all with God. I suspect God talks only with the meek and the poor, and I might be wrong about that, too. I suspect you'll have to torture me by pulling my teeth without any pain killer to get me to say much about this -- and I wear dentures so good luck with that.

Also, I have an interest in Astronomy, in UFOs, anyhting where I can use my curiosity to consider research of the unknown. I suspect I might not post about these things, either.

I also love dogs, chess, horses, and I suppose goats, too. In fact I must admit I like goats better than I like sheep. It's beyond me why the writers of the Bible preferred sheep, and why they demonized the poor resourceful goat. Well, they also said "for without are dogs" -- shame on them!

If there are no dogs in Heaven, well I am not sure I wanna go there. I recall an episode of "The Twilight Zone" where an elderly man and his dog both died. When they both walked up to the Pearly Gates the man was told his dog wasn't allowed. He said if his dog wasn't allowed, he didn't want to go there, either. Well, it turned out that was the gates of Hell, not Heaven. He eventually reached those Pearly Gates where his buddy was allowed. That's probably the most important lesson about anything that I have ever learned, or am ever likely to learn. And what was that lesson? Dogs are our guardian angels, of course! Well, that's a part of it, anyhow.

Another thing I have learned, I must travel about 20 blind allies to find a nugget of genealogical gold. The vast majority of my research finds nothing at all -- at least not about my family. But it does discover bits and pieces about the big picture, and as such might benefit others more than me. But I too benefit by gaining a little knowledge -- and oh, I do crave knowledge like an addict.

So this blog will cover a little bit about a lot of things, but as time passes that little bit will turn into a mountain, if I live long enough.

For the present though, the blog will cover things related to "my book, "Finding Our Indian Blood", a bit of research of which I am quite proud. It has taken at least 20 years and a thousand hours, and maybe 100 of those hours found something about my family. But the rest was useful also -- the book is only the tip of the iceberg.

I dedicate this blog and book to the thousands of sand grains on the river bottom that can be shown to have, once upon a time, millions of years back, been a part of a larger rock or boulder. And to that rock or boulder that can be proven to have been, millions of years even further back, at the top of the mountain. In short, it is dedicated to making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Oh, and dedicated to discovery, to research of all kinds, colors, shapes and sizes.